


Missteps

by Rynfinity



Series: Out of the Mouths of Babes [19]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:10:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“And you didn’t call me why exactly?”</p><p>It sounds incredibly stupid now:  “I didn’t want to worry you.”</p><p> </p><p>This is a direct sequel to Lessons and will make the most sense read after its predecessors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's Thor's turn to be clumsy and make bad choices.
> 
> Well, there's always enough of _that_ to go around.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **WARNING: Self-injury. It's mild compared to what you've seen here before but, still...**

" _Give_ that to me," Thor insists, making a play for the bottle clenched in Loki's fist and then pulling up short as the pain in his ribs flares. " _Fuck!_ ” He has to lean heavily on one hand on the counter and press the other hard against his side. Even that slight bit of twisting hurts. The pressing hurts. He can only pant in shallow little gasps. "Loki," he wheezes, craning his neck to look up at his brother. "Please."

Loki's nostrils flare. Even his lips are white. It's been a while since Thor has seen him like this, long enough that his expression looks out of place and shocking. "How could you be so stupid," he shrills. "Why would you do something like this to me?"

"I fell at work, Loki," he explains, again, still struggling to breathe. "I hardly see how that's doing something to you." It's been a shitty few hours, still getting shittier by the second, and he's not up for this. Not at all. "Hand it over." He reaches out, clenching his teeth for a moment against the pain. "Now, Loki."

"No," Loki says. Flat, stubborn. He walks out of the kitchen, the little bottle still held tight in his white-knuckled hand, and Thor has no choice but to stumble along after him.

~

"What are you doing," Thor protests, a little frantic, as Loki marches into the bathroom and flips up the toilet lid. It's all over before he can even attempt to stop it; the cap comes off with a practiced snap and the pills cascade into the waiting water. Thor closes his eyes tightly against the jolt of _red_ , reopening them only when he hears the splash of the sink running; his brother is rinsing out the bottle. Loki scrubs with shaking fingers and upends the whole thing into the toilet.

And then flushes.

Done.

Thor rests his face against the cool tile. "You know, brother," he says, not caring that he sounds like he could kill someone (if he only had the energy, which he doesn’t), "not everything in the world is about you."

"No," Loki agrees, glaring with an intensity that could easily pass for abject hatred, "it's about you. Here." He presses the wet, empty bottle into Thor's hand and pushes past him on the way back out of the small room.

The bedroom door slams so hard Thor can feel it in the wall beneath his cheek, even though he's across the hall and several yards away. Tears of impotent rage well up and spill; he would roar, but he can't. He would punch something, but he can't. He just – he can't.

Everything hurts, from the bottoms of his feet to the top of his pounding head, and his last hope for salvation is all the way out in the city sewers by now.

Fucking hell.

~

Once he can breathe again, well enough to move, Thor hobbles stiffly back out to the kitchen. He has to reach for the Advil, and a drinking glass, left-handed but in the end he gets both without breaking something.

He tosses back four candy-coated pills and makes his slow, painful way into the living room. The aching in his ribs is a living thing now. He's dimly aware he should go check on his brother; he just can't. That, and right now? He's all out of fucks to give.

None of their furniture is made for this. Everything is big and soft and kind of unstructured. In the end Thor squats, bracing with his left hand against the low table by the couch, and sits on the floor instead. Several agonizing maneuvers later, his legs are stretched out full-length and his back is pressed against the front of the couch arm. He lets his head drop back against the padded arm and sighs, just a little, resigning himself to a miserably sleepless night.

Happy Friday.

~

The apartment is pitch black and utterly silent, save for the faint pop and whistle of a cat snoring. If he blinks and squints Thor can just make out the clock on the DVD player: 3:26 AM. Ugh. His mouth is dried out and gummy; it tastes for all the world like something crawled in there, curled up on his tongue, and died. On top of everything he has to pee something fierce, and it’s literally _painfully_ obvious that the one lone dose of real pain medication _and_ the Advil have run completely out. His ribs hurt so badly that shifting even slightly makes his mouth fill with spit.

Which, sure, fixes one problem

All this thanks to a single fucking misstep. Who knew desks were so dangerous? Someday he might look back on this and find it funny; tonight, he just wants to die.

Thor shakes his head to clear it and immediately wishes he hadn't; the room tilts and spins. Marci, who has been curled against the back of his shoulder, huffs in protest and jumps off the couch with a thud.

_Go easy_ , Thor tells himself. He _has_ to get up, so he finds a way. It's not pretty and it's not easy and more than once he almost hurls - and the pain of that _would_ fucking kill him - but by 4:02 AM he’s standing.

He chokes down another four Advil, dry, and staggers into the bathroom. Thank god the lid is still up, or he'd be peeing in the sink this time.

As it is there isn't nearly as much splashing as there probably should be.

Oh well. Serves his brother right to step in someone else’s piss anyway.

~

The bedroom is _cold_. The glass door to the balcony is wide open, gauzy charcoal curtains fluttering in the dim glow of the streetlamp, and Thor's heart lurches in his chest. He fumbles clumsily for the light switch by the doorframe.

_Okay_.

In the circle of golden light spilling from the lamp by the bed, Loki sleeps- not peacefully, exactly - his dark brows pull together in a worried little V; the skin around his eyes is puffy and reddened - but _normally._ His hair is spread out across the pillow in a black, silky fan. The covers rise and fall gently with each slow breath.

As Thor stands watching - he has no idea how he’s going to manage undressing, let alone lying down – his brother shifts to roll partially over. Loki mutters something unintelligible and shifts again, curling long fingers over the edge of the comforter and tugging it closer.

Thor frowns. Something about his brother's hand on the bedding doesn't look right.

He limps the few remaining steps to the bedside, to get a better vantage point.

Loki's fingers are red-brown with dried _blood_.

Oh, jesus. Oh, fuck.

A hot wave of adrenaline courses through Thor. He leans forward and rips the covers off the bed in one smooth sweep, ignoring the wrenching stab of pain in his injured side.

He has perhaps half a second to take it all in - Loki is wearing one of his thin, long-sleeved t-shirts; from the hips down he is naked and pale and unharmed, legs bent, limp cock tucked against one thigh - before his brother screams and scrabbles for the headboard like a black and white crab.

"What did you do?" Thor's voice is hoarse.

Loki frowns at him, blinking.

"Why the blood," Thor tries again, pointing weakly towards his brother's hand.

"Oh." Loki's eyes follow in the direction Thor gestures. "It's nothing," he says, popping three fingers into his mouth.

The motion is a sweet, achingly familiar one; Loki looks, for a moment, like the adorable three-year-old Thor barely remembers.

"See? Nothing." Loki holds his shiny fingers up for inspection. "May I have my covers?"

Thor is coming down now, sick and jittery. His brother is going to be the one fetching the bedding – there’s no way he can do it, even if he wanted to - but they're not there yet. "Take off your shirt," he orders.

"It's freezing in here," Loki complains. “You can’t make-.”

"Take it off," Thor says again. "I'm not up to yo- to _playing_ games tonight," he corrects himself. After the recent flurry of panic-fueled activity, he's barely up to standing. "Off," he insists.

Loki's eyes harden. He pulls his shirt over his head, for once making no effort to be seductive. Sure enough, his left arm - high up, just below the armpit – is wrapped in the usual stretchy gauze.

With bloody smudges here and there.

"Off," Thor says again. He makes his halting way from the foot to the head of the bed as his brother, eyes narrowed and lips sucked in, slowly and carefully unwinds the bandage. 

Thor holds his breath, but it turns out Loki is right: there's a little dried blood soaked through the gauze squares pressed directly against the skin, but it's nowhere near enough to be concerning. The cuts themselves - a series of five or six parallel lines, maybe an inch or so long once - are red and sore-looking but already closed and scabby.

Loki twists his arm, wincing, and cranes his neck to look. "See? Nothing. Mac is capable of worse."

That part, and Thor has three fresh scars on one thigh to prove it, is all too true. It's not really the point, though. He tries to take a deep breath but can't. "Do we need to call someone?"

His brother yawns. "I did already. Before I went to sleep."

Thor reaches out with his left hand (and even that movement shifts his ribs enough to really hurt) and gently tucks a long piece of Loki's hair behind one ear. "Oh?"

"I talked to my sponsor, and my shrink,” Loki explains. “I sent pictures of the cuts, even. I'm supposed to call her again in the- well, later this morning,” he goes on, as Thor listens as attentively as possible under the circumstances, “but they were okay with me staying home." He shrugs. "I've handled things worse."

That’s undoubtedly true. They both have, sad to say.

For a little while they just exist, Loki perched on the pillows naked and shivering and Thor leaning uncomfortably against the metal headboard. "I didn't think," Thor says after the silence drags on long enough to feel awkward.

"That _is_ your trademark, after all," Loki jabs, yawning again. "But, yeah, life with an addict is challenging. At least that’s what it says in the manual." He looks Thor up and down, really looking at him now. "You look like shit. Do us both a favor and be more careful."

Thor tries to laugh and can’t, really. For a whole host of reasons. “Yes, boss,” he says, and his brother smirks.

Loki stretches. He wads up the gauze and drops it on the floor. “Come to bed? We can talk more if you want but I’m cold.”

“I’m not sure I can. My ribs, I mean.” Thor can’t imagine lying down. He wants to cry.

“So what did you actually do to yourself,” Loki asks, wrapping his arms around his shins. “I suppose you told me before but I really wasn’t listening.”

_No, you were stealing my pills and screaming like a banshee_ , Thor doesn’t say, because he does see now that the whole pain pill thing was a serious tactical error. He huffs out the biggest sigh he can manage, which is pretty much no sigh at all. “I tripped on the carpet and stumbled,” he says quietly. “And I guess I tried to catch myself on a pile of slippery papers, because the next thing I know my hand shot off the desk and down I went.” Right in front of half the office, too. “I caught the corner of the desk in the side. Cracked a rib and bruised two more, the doctors at urgent care tell me.”

Loki purses his lips. “Ouch,” he says, sounding reasonably sympathetic now. “Where’s the car?”

“It’s here. I drove myself there on the way home.” He tries again to laugh and winces. “Ugh. I told everyone I was fine. By the end of the afternoon, though, I knew I really wasn’t.”

“And you didn’t call me why exactly?”

It sounds incredibly stupid now: “I didn’t want to worry you.”

There’s another long pause. “Well,” Loki finally observes, “ _that_ worked out well, didn’t it?”

~

The chaises on the balcony have solid metal frames tucked beneath their thin cushions. That, and adjustable backrests. Thor protests at first that it’s way too cold out there for sleeping, but Loki helps him into a thick fleece and bundles them both in heavy blankets.

With the two chaises wedged tight together and his brother’s breath warm against his neck, Thor thinks he might finally be able to get some rest.

They can deal with the morning… in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which cooler heads prevail...

“Probably. I just didn’t know what else to do,” Loki is saying - into the phone? - as Thor blinks his sleepy way back to consciousness. He tries to twist and look at his brother but a sharp jolt of pain stops him. “It’s what I would have done myself. Um, yeah, sure.” Loki’s hand swims into view, holding a cell phone. “Dr. Riley - my shrink, I mean – wants to talk to you.”

~

“Hm?” Even just that little exhale hurts something fierce, to the point he breaks out in a cold sweat. Thor resigns himself to quietly dying here on the chaise. In a pool of urine, most likely. “This is Thor,” he tries again. God, he hurts.

“Hi, Thor. This is Dr. Riley,” the voice in his ear says. Clipped. Competent-sounding. The way Loki likes them. “I’m Loki’s therapist. I understand you have a rib fracture.”

“Yeah,” Thor agrees, trying to breathe as little as possible. “I tripped and landed on a desk.” For some (elusive, sure) reason he feels the need to be absolutely certain she understands his brother didn’t do this. “It’s just cracked, they say.”

“And how are you doing?”

“I’m in a lot of pain,” Thor tells her. “But I played football through college. I can handle it.”

She sighs. He’s so jealous. “Look,” she starts off. “I’m a recovering addict myself, so I do get where Loki is coming from. And I might almost agree with him, if you’d just sprained your ankle or something.” She pauses, but Thor isn’t going to waste precious movement speaking when he has nothing to say. “In this case – and I’m not telling you anything I haven’t already told Loki –,” she continues when Thor says nothing, “I think we need to find an alternative that works for both of you.”

“I’ll make this work,” Thor assures her. “I’m pretty tough, regardless of what he may have told you.”

She laughs. “Oh, trust me, I’ve gotten that picture. But even tough people can die from pneumonia.”

_Oh._ “But I don’t _have_ pneumonia,” he reminds her. “This was just from falling.”

“You easily _could_ have it in a week or two, though,” she argues. “Didn’t your doctor tell you that you need to make sure to move around, do your breathing exercises, cough, and so forth?”

Now that he thinks back, not one but two doctors had stressed exactly that. In fact, somewhere among the crap he’d been given at discharge is a two-sided sheet describing precisely what he needs to do. With diagrams. Something about using a small pillow as a brace, and about deep breathing and coughing every two hours. The very idea of coughing makes him shudder, which in turn hurts horribly. “Yes,” he says, finally. “There’s no way I can.”

“Because of the pain,” she finishes for him.

“Yes,” Thor says again.

“Well, then,” she says simply, “we need to fix that. Can you put Loki back on?”

Thor waves the phone around, just a little. “She wants to talk to you,” he tells his hovering brother.

~

“Seriously?” Loki’s voice rises into a squawk. “Or are you just saying that to make me feel bad?” Thor can’t hear what Dr. Riley is saying but her sharp tone comes across just fine. “No, you’re right. I’m just upset,” Loki tells her. He listens for close to a minute and then sighs, loudly. _Everyone_ else can do it. The whole world is sighing. “I don’t like it, I have to tell you,” Loki protests. “But- but I don’t want anything to happen to him, so I guess that means I’m willing to give it a try.” He passes the phone back over to Thor. “Next.”

~

“Hi,” Thor says. He makes to scoot up – his ass is numb – but it hurts so badly his body stupidly tries to gasp. “Sorry,” he tells Dr. Riley, because he knows he’s just made a sound like a dying cow. “I forgot and moved.”

She doesn’t comment. “Loki is- well, _comfortable_ isn’t the right word,” she says instead, and Thor would laugh if he could (he can’t). “But he’s _willing to work with_ a locking bag. You’ll set the combination and not show it to him, and you’ll want to have someone outside your household hold onto the emergency key for you. The bags I have are tough,” she admits, “but not completely tamper-proof, so you’ll need to keep yours in your sight and carry it with you if you leave the apartment. Can you do that?”

He’d be happy to, actually, but it sounds a bit like locking the barn door after the horse is gone. “Um, I would, but I don’t have the pills anymore,” he explains. “Loki here flushed them.”

“Yeah, I got that part,” she says. He thinks she’s probably laughing again, to herself at least. The two of them – he and his brother – are a hot mess sometimes. “It’s going to take some phone calls and some paperwork, especially on a Saturday, but I’m reasonably certain I can fix that part for you.”

Thor hadn’t realized quite how much all this had been getting to him, not until her last few words. The flood of relief that passes through him feels almost like a drug itself. “Oh god,” he says, and his voice breaks. “I love you.”

~

Dr. Riley’s right, unsurprisingly.

They have to enlist Sif’s help in the end – she (gets him a urinal, _just until we can get this sorted out and then you really have to move around as much as you can_ , and a nice flexible ice pack, and after that) totes Loki around for a good hour and a half _getting shit done_.

~

“Okay,” Sif tells Thor when she and Loki finally reappear on the balcony. She has a sheaf of very official-looking state paperwork in one hand, full of stamps and signatures, and what looks kind of like a smudged white night deposit bag in the other. “Let’s get you up “ she tells him, passing everything off to Loki. “You’re going to have to appear in person to get the replacement goods. But it will be worth it,” she promises as he grimaces, “because you will feel so much better with the right stuff onboard.” She caps the urinal and sets it out of the way. “Okay, up.”

“But I’m half-naked,” he fusses as she rearranges the blankets so he won’t trip.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she says, rolling her eyes. He loves her, too. “You haven’t got a single thing I don’t see on a daily basis.”

~

Getting up and dressed is awful. Going back to urgent care – where they all get a lecture, Loki included, even after they explain that they’re _acting under professional advisement_ \- is even worse. By the time they finally make it to the pharmacy, though, one of the several shots the urgent care team gave him has really taken the edge off and Thor is feeling almost human again. And then some.

Sif looks him over as he climbs, grinning – without dying; this stuff is magic – out of her car. “Do us all a favor and talk as little as possible here, okay,” she suggests, one eyebrow raised. Sometimes he’s willing to swear she is Loki’s sister. “We don’t want to end up in jail, do we?”

~

It’s somewhere between lunch and dinner when they’re finally all back at the apartment and have everything put away. Sif helps Thor with the combination (she’s keeping the key, she tells him, and he’s happy to let her), and with his exercises, and then disappears again with Loki in tow.

They return a few minutes later, beaming, bearing carton after carton of the best hot, spicy Hungarian food – fish soup, and a hearty vegetable stew he’s never even heard of let alone tasted – imaginable. It’s delicious. It makes him warm. It makes him cough, and coughing barely hurts at all.

Okay, he loves everyone. “I’m surprised you weren’t nicer,” he tells his brother fondly. “This stuff is awesome.”

Loki gives him one of those looks, the kind that says “any other day I might just kill you in your sleep.”

~

“Seriously, you two,” Sif admonishes one final time as she and Loki finish loading the dishwasher. “Some days I wonder how either of you has managed to live this long.”

Leaning against the kitchen counter – just like last night, but not like last night at all - Loki looks completely exhausted. He laughs, just the same. “Me too, Siffy, me too.”

~

“Do you hate me,” his brother asks once Sif has at long last gone home. They’ve checked back in with Dr. Riley, made up a nice, simple medication log, and settled down in front of the TV with Marci and Mac. What a difference a day makes.

“Of course not,” Thor assures Loki. Hating his brother is one thing he’s never mastered. “You did what you thought you had to do.”

“But this is better?” Loki looks at him, face pinched with worry.

“Yeah,” Thor breathes, settling into the cushions with just a little twinge of discomfort. He grabs Loki’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “This is perfect.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor gets a visit from Mr. Fix-It

"Now remember," Loki tells Thor for at least the third time - and that's only counting what's happened since he’s gotten out of the shower - "you can just text me the same as always if you need something." He ruffles Thor's hair, like their mother used to do when one of them was under the weather. "My phone will be up at the desk with the guard. As if I'm some rich doctor at the opera," he adds, faking some sort of mixed Renaissance language European-ish accent. When he leans down for a kiss, though, and Thor can finally get a good read on him, Loki turns out to be far more worried-looking than he is playful. "You be careful," he insists. “I mean it.”

"I will," Thor promises. "The cats will keep an eye on me."

Loki cracks a little smile at that. "No," he disagrees, shaking his head. "They'll want you to lie around. You can't do that! Do I need to-?"

Whatever it is, Thor doesn't need or want to hear it. "No, you don't," he cuts in. "I'll walk around. I'll breathe. I'll cough. Just like yesterday," he assures Nurse Loki. _Nursemaid_ Loki, more like. "I'll take my pills. I'll log every single thing so you can critique me later."

He doesn’t mean anything by that. It just kind of pops out. Still, for a brief moment his brother looks hurt. "I just want you to be okay," Loki stresses, pouting.

Thor sighs. He _can_ sigh; better living through chemistry. "I know, baby," he says, reaching out with his thumb to tuck Loki's lip back where it belongs. "I mean it, too. I'll be fine."

~

He _is_ fine, or at least well on his way there. He's supposed to take it easy today and tomorrow, and then follow up with his newly-acquired primary care doctor. Depending on how that goes, he may be cleared to work from home as soon as Friday. Thursday, even, they'd told him, but his brother - the legitimate house expert on broken bones and healing - claims that's overly optimistic.

Thor has all the rules and exercises laid out, on a chart he and Loki spent an hour putting together a day ago. It's actually incredibly simple.

It's actually incredibly boring.

~

Yesterday, they hadn't felt that tackling the groceries was a wise idea... and it probably wasn’t, especially considering how Thor isn't allowed to drive until he's done with the pain pills. The idea of having the car service take them, like some aging, infirm Mafia Don and his- oh, whatever Loki might be, was utterly unappealing. Consequently when lunchtime rolls around Thor calls for takeout, carefully timing his breathing-and-coughing homework for when the delivery guy won't be there.

That entire project, including carefully pulling on loose jeans with a comfortable shirt that doesn't require too much twisting or tugging, kills just under an hour.

Putting away the leftovers takes another ten minutes, mostly because squatting for containers is slow going. The problem isn’t his ribs, even; it's everything he'd strained Friday night, when the both of them were busy being Grade A idiots.

~

It’s interminable. By mid-afternoon, the sun still bright in the sky and the next couple of hours stretching on in front of him endlessly, Thor finds himself developing a whole new appreciation for what it means to be Loki.

He wants to go out but he can't. He wants to sleep but he's not allowed; not for more than hour at a time, and a fuckton of good _that_ will do. He's already tired of poking around on the Internet. He wants to talk to his brother, but _I'm so fucking bored_ hardly amounts to an emergency. He can't even organize his sock drawer, because the big wooden chair in the bedroom is _heavy_ and he's not yet cleared for that kind of pushing or pulling. How pitiful is that?

Not that he wants to, but still.

In the end, he calls his therapist and makes arrangements to talk tomorrow. "No emergency," he assures the girl at the desk again before ending the call. It isn’t. "I'm just unexpectedly off work for a couple of days, so it seems like a good time."

~

Thor does his exercises one more time and then gives in. He sets his phone timer for an hour and lies carefully - he's feeling pretty good but there's no point in taking chances - down for a nap.

Time after time, he jerks uncomfortably awake; invariably, he’s been dreaming of falling.

~

_i'm heading home_ Loki texts about 5:10. _u ok?_

Thor yawns. It hurts a little more now, which makes sense since it’s almost pill time. _soooo boorrred_ , he sends back. _know how you felt before treatment_ , he adds before his brother can rub it in. _well sorta_.

His phone rings. "I bet I can fix that for you," Loki offers, and Thor can practically hear his brother smirking. "But first things first. Dinner?"

~

_Surprise me,_ Thor'd told him, and Loki does. He hits up the ridiculously swank place a couple of blocks over, the one their bank accounts can cover but their respective wardrobes can't, and comes home with nothing short of a feast. Everything is hot and spicy and flavorful – tiny hand-rolled gnocchi fra diavolo to start, then seared tuna and melt-in-your mouth scallops to share.

Loki is sweetly solicitous, too, forking up bits of food and offering them to him one perfect morsel after another. It’s nice. Thor is definitely up for a bit of babying by now, loathe as he might be to admit it.

He even lets his brother wipe his mouth neatly with a napkin. Yes, he’s more than capable of dealing with it himself, but why bother?

That Loki finishes the cleanup with warm, garlicky lips and tongue is an just added bonus.

Thor is almost too full for the shaved-chocolate-bedecked cannoli, despite how wonderful they look and smell. Loki smiles at him with a wicked little grin. “Considering where my mouth is going next, brother,” Loki says, eyes bright green in the low light, “and how hot that sauce was, I’m not thinking you want _me_ skipping the dairy. Share?”

“But- um-,” Thor stammers, caught way off guard. “I don’t think I’m cleared for anything like that.”

“Keeping up your deep breathing,” Loki offers. He pats the couch gently. “Sitting comfortably. Not overexerting, but avoiding complete inactivity.” He tilts his head to one side. “You just took your next round of pills, right?”

It’s true; Thor’d downed them right on schedule, maybe ten minutes before Loki and dinner had arrived. He shifts a little; the twinges of pain he’d felt earlier, when his brother had just been leaving the center, are nothing more than a bit of dull discomfort now. He nods.

“Good,” Loki says, popping in a mouthful of cannoli and licking his fingers daintily. He chews, then swallows. “I think you’re covered. You’ll be fine.”

~

Thor mostly is, really. Watching means tensing his stomach muscles, which does hurt some, so instead he gives in; he sinks back into the cushions, concentrates on his breathing as best he can, and gradually loses himself to the hot, wet slip and pull of his brother’s lips and tongue. It feels good, really good. He’s finally able to truly relax for what must be the first time in days.

In fact (and Thor would never in a million years have imagined himself thinking this, ever) his orgasm turns out to be the worst part.

Well, no, that’s a lie; it’s the _laughing_ afterwards - he can’t help but cry out in pain; Loki, startled, pulls abruptly off with an alarmed little yip and gets a faceful – that he swears might actually kill him.

~

“Okay,” Loki says when they’ve both regained some of their composure – he’s wiped his face on his napkin… and gotten the worst of the mess out of his hair, too, and Thor has stopped coughing and can almost breathe normally again – “maybe that wasn’t the greatest idea after all.”

Thor stretches a little, experimentally. Everything seems about the same, now that the excitement has died down. “No harm, no foul,” he assures his brother. He tucks himself back in his pants, then wipes his fingers on the closest napkin. “Here,’ he suggests, reaching for Loki. “Pass me the rest of that cannoli.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Convalescence is a strain.

"I don't know _how_ you did it," Thor tells his brother. He doesn’t. It's only been five days now and he's already going batshit crazy.

"Mm?" Loki looks up from his book, then reaches out to pet lightly up and down Thor's thigh. "How I did what, baby?"

"Just sat around and didn- and _couldn't do_ ," he corrects himself, because he's really not meaning to judge, “anything. All the times when you-," he fumbles, "couldn't."

Loki's forehead furrows. "A lot of it was different," he says after a moment. "But, yeah, it gets boring." His face shifts into a naughty grin. "Especially when you can't jack off all day."

"You didn't." Thor can feel his face going pink, which is silly because it's not even him they're discussing.

"Oh, yes I did," Loki says, laughing. He squeezes Thor's thigh. "I have that whole box of goodies, remember?" His pretty features settle back into a frown, though, when Thor doesn't laugh with him. "It really was different. I was healing, pretty much nonstop, from one thing or another. Not that you aren't," he assures as Thor opens his mouth to protest, "but you're in good shape. I was running on fumes. My reserves were totally gone." He twists a little and cups Thor's cheek in one hand. "And I was a major mess in the head. That kept me surprisingly busy."

Thor thinks for a solid minute, carefully juggling his words. "Do you hate me for it?"

"For what, keeping me locked up?" Loki snorts. "No. That was nothing. You did plenty worse. I'm sorry," he laugh-pleads when Thor makes a face, "but you did."

Thor is just about half an hour from his next pills; bawling outright would be too painful. Instead he blinks a lot and lets the tears stream down his face unaided.

~

He'd been optimistic going into the appointment earlier, even after having had to use the car service. Yes, he’d climbed the stairs slowly like an old man… but there hadn’t been any witnesses. The doctor's office had turned out to be way up on the fourth floor, and no one had needed - needs, either, ever - to know he'd given up on way back on two and gone the rest of the way up in the elevator.

The doctor had been pleasant, sympathetic and thorough. The kind who will be a good find, for the long haul. Unfortunately for now, though, he’d also proven quite medically conservative; he’d asked a few pointed questions and ordered another chest xray. "Get this done Friday morning," he'd directed, going briskly on before Thor’d had any chance to ask about _sooner_ , "and then we'll see about you working from home on Tuesday. Maybe Monday afternoon," he'd conceded when Thor had grunted in surprise (and then in pain). "But you don't strike me as someone who's very good at taking it easy."

~

"It's the last of the nice weather, though," his therapist had pointed out the day before as Thor had pissed and moaned. "Go out on that amazing balcony you're always talking about and enjoy the view," he'd suggested. "Do some thinking."

Yeah. Thinking.

Just what Thor needs.

~

Loki is creative and solicitous.

Wednesday night Thor'd bitched (after he'd finished crying, which hadn't been nearly as cathartic as advertised, and pouting, which hadn't gotten him an apology; not that he'd expected one... or deserved one, for that matter) about stupid fucking takeout. Again. Takeout takeout takeout.

Because, you know, they _never_ get takeout when they’re healthy. Never.

Consequently Thursday night Loki had (all on his own) gotten the car service to drop him off at a nearby grocery store right after his shelter shift (of the two of them he's less weird about being toted around like organized crime royalty, apparently, and Thor isn't quite sure what to think about that). His brother had come home only slightly later than expected, flushed and sweaty, pushing a little-old-lady-style folding cart crammed with a perfectly serviceable assortment of groceries.

~

"Up up," Loki insists, offering both hands and bracing for leverage. Just like Sif does, actually. "You're sitting too much. Come help me with dinner. I'll lift, you chop," he says, leaning back as Thor pulls himself up. "Kind of nice change of pace, eh?" He hugs Thor, carefully, and Thor hugs back. "Role reversal."

And that’s exactly what they do. Loki slings the huge pot, full of water and ready for sweet corn, from the sink to the burner while Thor chops tomatoes and basil for salad. He hefts the cast-iron griddle while Thor rinses the tuna and pats it carefully dry. The muscles in his shoulders and back flex under his shirt, rippling and shifting, and Thor almost slices his own thumb off.

"Shit," he huffs as the knife just grazes him.

"Wha?" Loki spins. The metal spatula in his hand trails a fine arc of fish juice and oil across the cooktop and onto the floor. "What’s wrong?"

Thor laughs, giddy and brittle, nerves still jangling with the little rush of adrenaline. "You're too distracting. I can’t be trusted with sharp objects around you.”

Loki sets the spatula down on a folded paper towel. “That’s funny,” he says, voice tight and small. “Neither can I.”

“I didn’t mean anything like _that_ ,” Thor hurries to clarify.

“Yeah,” his brother says. “You never do.”

They finish their meal prep in what probably looks - to the casual observer - to be companionable silence, crisscrossing the kitchen in a practiced dance that’s surprisingly free of spills and crashes, but something subtle has changed between them and Thor has no clue how to fix it.

~

“This is absolutely delicious,” he tells his brother around a perfectly-seared bite of fish. “You’re so good at this.”

“It’s _tuna_ , Thor,” Loki grumbles. “From a _pan_. It’s not the fucking Mona Lisa.”

Thor’s eyes sting. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry,” he offers.

His brother sighs. “You didn’t _do_ anything. Give it a rest, Thor.”

~

A little more than halfway through dinner, Loki pushes back from the table and gets up abruptly. “I have to pee,” he says, and disappears.

He’s gone a long time, plenty long enough to give lie to the original explanation.

Long enough, Thor’s embarrassed to admit, that the whole absence warrants a little mental inventory ( _my drug bag is right here on the table by the couch; the key is at Sif’s_ ). He clears his throat. “Baby,” he calls, loud enough for his voice to carry down the hall. “You okay? Loki?”

Thor gets slowly to his feet and hurries off towards the bedroom. Or what passes for hurrying these days. It’s close enough to the real thing that he almost skids right past the bathroom door without even looking.

A faint, sad sound stops him.

“Loki?”

“Go away.” His brother’s voice is muffled; Loki is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, elbows on knees, with his face in his hands. His hair is half out of its ponytail. His shoulders are shaking.

“What’s wrong,” Thor asks, feeling stupid. He reaches out and touches Loki’s hair. His own eyes well up again. “Talk to me. Please?”

“I can barely take care of myself,” his brother says, voice wet and a little hoarse. “I can’t do this. I can’t take care of you. I’m going to fuck it up and you’ll hate me.”

Thor looks around the cramped space. He can’t really teeter comfortably on the edge of the tub, so he sits carefully on the (closed) toilet instead. “But you _have_ taken care of me,” he protests. “You _are_. Mom always said I was a shitty patient, too – well, she didn’t say it quite _that_ way,” he adds, although he can’t quite smile with Loki looking so awfully _heartbroken_ “ – but you’re good at it. Really.” He snuffles. Snuffling hurts. “Come with me,” he pleads, tugging one of Loki’s hands free. “I need to take my medication.”

~

_Oh, jesus._

Back out in the other room, it’s laugh or cry. “Uh oh,” Thor says, lamely, as he waddles out of the hallway – Loki in frighteningly docile, dripping tow – and finds Marci up on the table shamelessly helping herself to a nice helping of fish. “Oops. Get down, you big lug,” he tells her. “Shoo.” He reaches for her. She – ears back, still chewing happily - ignores him the way only cats can.

“No no wait wait wait,” Loki warns, springing to life and hurrying forward. “She’s too heavy for you. I’ll get her.”

Thor catches his brother as Loki rushes past and just manages to plant a kiss on his forehead. “See? You’re doing this. You can.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor's a little off-kilter.

"A little help here, skunk-butt? Daddy's doing this all alone right now," Thor hears his brother telling Mac from the room where they keep the litter boxes. Loki coughs loudly. "You have every right to be proud of yourself; the paint in here should start peeling any second."

"Bad?" Thor feels a little guilty sticking Loki with all the scooping, but getting down on his hands and knees on the hard floor - and then balancing on one hand while he digs around - is still exceptionally painful.

"God," Loki complains, coming into the living room with a plastic bag. "It's horrible. _How_ does something so cute push out shit this awful?" Just as he ties the bag Mac marches proudly by, tail flicking to and fro jauntily. "Seriously. What are you eating, my little monster?"

To add insult to injury, Thor's certain, their cocky orange mini-brat continues straight past Loki without hesitation and hops onto the couch. He curls up against Thor's thigh and blinks sweetly up at him as, it seems, only a kitten can.

Loki bares his teeth. "You're lucky I don't hurt animals," he singsongs, in the same voice he uses to ask the cats if they’re hungry. "You little snot you."

Mac rests his head against Thor's leg with a loud purr. "Don't be mean to your daddy," Thor admonishes. "Sorry," he immediately offers, wincing. "It just slipped out. I didn't mean anything by-."

Loki smiles. "It's fine. As long as you don't start calling me _your_ daddy, I'm good with it."

"No worries, baby," Thor says, laughing. "That might well be the absolute last thing that comes to mind when I think of you."

~

It's the first time he's left the apartment for anything but a medical appointment since his stupid desk incident, and Thor is feeling a little nervous. He's taken his pills like a good boy – they’ve left him mildly sleepy, but not dangerously so - and he and his brother are only walking a couple of blocks. Sif has even volunteered to drive him home if he needs her to, at any point during the evening. No questions asked.

Still, he's apprehensive. "I don't want to ruin dinner for everyone," he fusses to Loki as they're getting ready to leave. "Maybe you three should just go without me."

"Don't be stupid," Loki retorts. "If we didn't want you there we wouldn't have invited you."

It's fair and probably true, but the idea - _my brother doesn't need me anymore_ \- sits kind of funny. He opts not to say so. What good can admitting it do, really?

"Plus," Loki goes on, watching Thor closely, "it's just dinner, and just friends. They miss you."

Keeping up on the housekeeping this week, with him laid up and _pets_ and Loki shouldering everything, hasn't exactly been successful. It’s a lost cause, actually; the place is a mess, with cat hair everywhere. That, and they simply haven't been up to entertaining. Going out really is a better idea. He should just suck up and do it.

"Come on," Loki suggests, reaching for his hand. "We'll take it nice and easy."

"My mind is playing fucking games with me," Thor admits as they step out of the elevator. "The longer I sit around, the more I feel like I'll never get better."

"Do tell," Loki says, but it's clearly not an actual request. So Thor- well, he doesn't.

~

"Ugh," Steve groans, grimacing at his military surplus wristwatch as he rushes over to their table. "I'm so late. I’m sorry. Work has been ridiculous. One of my coworkers is out," he explains, lowering his voice. "She says she was in an accident, but the rest of us think her husband is beating her. Um, whoops," he says, sounding embarrassed, as Sif and Loki exchange a look. "TMI? I didn't mean-."

Thor holds up a hand and Steve stops abruptly. Before he has a chance to say anything, though, his brother cuts in.

"I've been in multiple abusive relationships," Loki explains, and to Thor his cheery tone feels utterly strange. "These two are overly protective of me. It's no big deal."

Steve blushes. "Oh. Right. Sorry.” He looks at the table. “At least you're out of that now?"

Loki and Sif glance at each other again. "Yeah," his brother says flatly. "Yeah, I hope so."

Thor takes another bite, but it's like sawdust in his mouth and lead in his stomach. His head swims.

"Hey, are you okay," Steve asks, peering at him oddly. "You're really pale."

"It's nothing," Thor tells him. All of them. "I'm fine."

Except he isn't.

~

“What did you mean,” Thor asks Loki on the walk home. He’s pretty tired, but the idea of being trapped in the car with Sif (or, worse yet, Steve) had left him feeling much too claustrophobic. He’d waved them both off, hoping a walk with Loki might end up being calming.

It’s not really working, though. He still feels sick about the whole conversation.

Thor half expects his brother to feign ignorance; more than half, really. Loki doesn’t. “Nothing more than what I said,” he says. “I hope that part of our lives is behind us.”

“Um.” Thor swallows. His throat feels horribly tight. “You don’t _know_ it is?”

Loki looks at him, sideways. Thor can’t properly read his brother’s expression in this bad lighting. “None of us _knows_ it is, Thor.” Loki shrugs. “It’s always a risk, you know?”

It’s not a pretty way to look at things. “And you’re okay with that?”

His brother shrugs. “I love you. We belong together. If it comes with the territory, it comes with the territory.”

Thor stops walking. “I don’t want that kind of life for you,” he says, after Loki stops as well and turns to face him. “I- I don’t want you to be the person everyone whispers about. You know what I mean,” he complains as his brother smirks. “It’s not funny.”

Loki reaches up and touches Thor’s lower lip. His eyes are wide and his expression is just this side of dangerous. “I do, and you’re right,” he agrees, “it’s not. But people are going to whisper about me no matter what the fuck you do.”

More than anything Thor wants his brother to stop changing the subject. Except for how he never wants to talk about any of this again. “What is it,” Loki asks, after a few seconds of deafening silence.

“I’m afraid,” Thor tells him. He could never be a narcotics abuser; the stuff makes him way too honest. He’d be walking around like an idiot, telling all the nice people _I’m sorry, but I’m going to rob you now, because I need a fix and that means I have to take your money._ He wouldn’t last a day.

But Loki doesn’t press for more. “Let’s go home,” he says softly instead, turning away. “I didn’t want this- this evening out to upset you.” He looks back and makes eye contact, briefly. “I know Steve didn’t mean-.”

Thor clears his throat, loudly, cutting his brother off. “It’s not Steve’s fault, and it’s not yours. I need to stop hiding behind everyone.”

“We fought,” Loki reminds him. “We always fought. You know that.”

“Not good enough,” Thor disagrees. “Not anymore.”

“Home,” his brother insists, stepping back to give him a little push. “We’ll see how you feel about this another time, if you want, when it’s not the drugs talking.”

~

By the time they’re upstairs and settled in, Thor is woozy and sleepy and feeling like he’s way overdone it. Mentally, if not physically. He lets Loki steer him off to bed. “Stay?”

Loki makes a wry face. “I live here, remember? I just have to feed the cats, baby. I’ll be right back, I promise.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor calls after his brother as Loki heads out into the hallway. “Really sorry.”

“I’m not,” Loki says. He turns around to look at Thor, one hand on his hip. “Go to sleep, baby.”


End file.
